In 2013 UKIP described the unemployed as a “a parasitic underclass of scroungers”.

UKIP’s welfare policies include forced unpaid work for all Housing and Council Tax Benefit claimants, Incapacity Benefit (now ESA) slashed to Job Seeker’s Allowance rates and childcare support for working parents demolished.

Some readers may find the above headline a bit strong, but please be assured – this is what it means.

Vox Political became aware of this story in two contrasting ways, as follows.

Firstly, from The Guardian: “From September 2015 [the government] will only pay for support for students with specific learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, if their needs are ‘complex’, although the definition of this, and who decides it, remains unclear.

“It will no longer pay for standard computers for disabled students, or for much of the higher specification IT it now subsidises.

“And it will no longer fund non-specialist help, likely to include note-takers and learning mentors. The costs of specialist accommodation will be met only in exceptional circumstances.”

Paddy Turner, of the National Association of Disability Practitioners (NADP) is quoted: “This is going to have a disastrous effect on students with specific learning difficulties because it looks very clear that [universities minister David Willetts] is trying to remove them from the DSA. It looks like a knee-jerk reaction to recent reports that specific learning difficulties and dyslexia aren’t really disabilities at all.”

Thanks to Vox Political

I wonder if UKIP’s policies or even the 3rd Reichs policies will/would differ?

The month of May is “ME Awareness Month”, with May 12th being the particular day, and I have also seen the week starting May 11th designated as ME awareness week.

ME is classified by the World Health Organisation as a neurologically-based disease. It is of unknown cause, although there are several theories including viral and environmental agents. There is no known cure.

Unfortunately, in the UK the NHS seems to have ignored the WHO’s classification of ME as a specifically neurological illness, and has lumped ME together with any and all unexplained tiredness and fatigue, which can in fact be caused by a number of things, including Lyme Disease, Lupus, vitamin B12 deficiency and Pernicious Anaemia, Thyroid and adrenal problems, Sjögren’s, PCOS and other endocrine diseases, MS, fibromyalgia, depression and more, and has called the whole collection CFS, MEcfs or cfsME.

Within the umbrella of CFS there is obviously a vast spectrum of symptoms which range in severity, from those who are experiencing a mild loss of ‘get up and go’ to those who are in constant pain and utterly bedbound and unable to care for themselves, and since it is an umbrella term, treatments that may be helpful for mild types of CFS, such as GET – graded exercise and CBT – cognitive behavioural therapy, are wholly inappropriate and can be harmful for those who actually have ME.

CBT can be useful for people not coping well with any long term chronic illness but should not be touted as a main treatment for ME in the way that it is, based on the faulty assumption that CFS is inevitably linked to caused by psychological factors, and GET is harmful to PWME who have the key symptom of Post exertional malaise.

This situation has been exacerbated by the psychiatric establishment which has greedily claimed all ‘CFS’ patients as their own, baselessly alleging that all CFS must be related to mental and emotional factors.

Thus the tendency is to treat all CFS patients as though they are all suffering from an unexplained, probably psychologically-based, rather than neurologically-based illness, regardless of the severity, and further to fail to investigate thoroughly or adequately in order to rule out any other cause (such as those listed above).

There is no definitive test for ME yet (largely because genuine research has been so scarce), and so ME should never be diagnosed until every other possible cause has been eliminated.

The classification of ME together with any unexplained CFS is a nonsense which means that people who actually have curable and treatable diseases aren’t getting the help they could and should be able to expect, while those with ME are simply treated with disdain instead of receiving the palliative care they need.

This is a wholly unacceptable situation for everybody involved, which helps no-one, except those few outspoken psychiatrists who like to gain notoriety by making the psychological case and denying the reality of the suffering.

A friend has also pointed out that MS, asthma, duodenal ulcers and other illnesses were all considered psychiatric problems before biomedical caught up.

A shocking proposal from a so-called expert at the Department of Health has suggested that people in work should be given priority for treatment in the NHS.

In a move which could hit pensioners, disabled people, lone parents and unemployed people, government advisor Dame Carol Black has said: “I personally think we should perhaps be more honest and debate more fully if we would prioritise such patients if it was a question of getting them back to work.”

In other words if you are currently without a job, for any reason, then forget about accessing healthcare as you are pushed down to the bottom of NHS waiting lists. Black’s comments even seem to suggest that the sicker you are, and the less likely to be able to go back to work, then the longer you might have to wait for NHS treatment.

Dame Carol Black made the comments – which were first reported on the Work, Savings and Benefits website – at the recent Health and Wellbeing 2014 conference. She was joined at the conference by DWP chief medical adviser Dr Bill Gunnyeon who according to the website agreed that there is: “an issue about what priority we give to health related interventions for people of working age

Rarely if ever have I read anything that has made me physically sick; this morning I came across a Government Report via fellow blogger johnny void that openly calls for “Residential Training is intended to help unemployed adults with disabilities, particularly those at risk of exclusion from the job market, to secure and sustain employment or self employment” which to my mind describes nothing more than a workhouse.

Reading through this Report I went from Hot to Cold and back again as I rationalised the contents, from the executive summery to the Recommendations. The emphasis throughout is to stress the ‘benefits’ of the Residential element and attempts to demonstrate how that could apply to people on Work Programme which “provides support, work experience and training for up to 2 year” and Work Choice for people “ disabled and find it hard to work“.

I suppose in order to provide a fair analysis I must also note the reports willingness to be inclusive, therefore I also note the authors desire to ensure this Residential training is also open to those the DWP deem to be “non-disabled people who are long term unemployed”. Although this isbecause “the unit cost of provision would then be driven down” rather than the programme suiting these potential trainees.

I can not here begin to offer a full analysis of this Report but I strongly urge you to take a look and if you can’t bear to read it all at least read the the 3 Case Studies which focus on opiate addiction and mental health issues, Scoliosis, Asthma, Autism, Aspergers, ADHD and Depression and severe mental health issues, alcohol abuse and long-term unemployment; these alone demonstrate the ‘type’ of individual the authors feel ought to be in Residential programmes, and then tell me this isn’t a case for a return to the Workhouse??